Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T03:18:03.574Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Examining ‘Social Investment’ Policy in a Multi-Ethnic Sure Start Area: Staff Perspectives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 September 2010

Tricia Hamm
Tricia Hamm*
Affiliation:
E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article, based on a study conducted in a multi-ethnic Sure Start programme between 2003–6, explores aspects of the interface between policy, implementation and use of services. The early Sure Start discourse depicted parents both as legitimate recipients of support and as active and aspirational agents. It is argued that the second of these identities, tapping into a ‘social investment’ agenda, increasingly characterised the direction of the policy discourse. Interview data from professionals in the case study area about local need and use of services, however, emphasised the ‘constrained agency’ of many local mothers, and the inappropriateness therefore of the perceived direction of policy.

Type
Articles
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , October 2010 , pp. 503 - 514
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alcock, P. (2004), ‘The influence of dynamic perspectives on poverty analysis and anti-poverty policy in the UK’, Journal of Social Policy, 33, 3, 395–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barn, R. with Ladino, C. and Rogers, R. (2006), Parenting in Multi-Racial Britain, London: National Children's Bureau.Google Scholar
Bryson, C., Bell, A., La Valle, I., Barnes, M. and O'Shea, R. (2005), Use of Childcare Among Families from Minority Ethnic Backgrounds and Among Families with Children with Special Educational Needs, National Centre for Social Research & Sure Start, Nottingham: DfES Publications.Google Scholar
Cabinet Office Strategy Unit (2002), ‘Delivering for children and families: interdepartmental childcare review’, available at www.number-10.gov.uk/su/childcare/downloads/su-children.pdf, 22 October 2007.Google Scholar
Cheong, P. H., Edwards, R., Gouldborne, H. and Solomos, J. (2007), ‘Immigration, social cohesion and social capital: a critical review’, Critical Social Policy, 27, 1, 24–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, K. and Drinkwater, S. (2007), Ethnic Minorities in the Labour Market: Dynamics and Diversity, Bristol: The Policy Press.Google Scholar
Clarke, K. (2006), ‘Childhood, parenting and early intervention: a critical examination of the Sure Start national programme’, Critical Social Policy, 26, 4, 699–721.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Commission on Social Justice (1994), Social Justice: Strategies for National Renewal, London: Vintage.Google Scholar
Craig, G., Adamson, S., Ali, N., Ali, S., Atkins, L., Dadze-Arthur, A., Elliott, C., McNamee, S. and Murtuja, B. (2007), ‘Sure Start and black minority ethnic populations’, National Evaluation Report 020, Department for Education and Skills, available at www.dcsf.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/NESS2007FR020.pdf, 22 October 2007.Google Scholar
Department for Education and Skills (2002), Sure Start: A Guide for Sixth Wave Programmes, Nottingham: DfES Publications.Google Scholar
Department for Education and Skills (2003a), Children's Centres – Developing Integrated Services for Young Children and Their Families, Start Up Guidance, February, Nottingham: DfES Publications.Google Scholar
Department for Education and Skills (2003b), Sure Start Guidance 2004–2006, Section II Delivery Guidance, Nottingham, DfES Publications, available at www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/publications/guidance/327/Google Scholar
Department for Education and Skills (2005), A Sure Start Children's Centre for Every Community: Phase 2, Planning Guidance (2006–8), July, London: DfES Publications.Google Scholar
Dobrowolsky, A. and Jenson, J. (2005), ‘Social investment perspectives and practices: a decade in British politics’, Social Policy Review, 17, Bristol: Policy Press, pp. 203–30.Google Scholar
Dobrowolsky, A. and Saint-Martin, D. (2005), ‘Agency, actors and change in a child-focused future: “path dependency” problematised’, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 43, 1, 1–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duncan, S., Edwards, R., Reynolds, T. and Alldred, P. (2004), ‘Mothers and childcare: policies, values and theories’, Children & Society, 18, 4, 254–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eisenstadt, N. (2003), ‘Work is the best means of attack on poverty’, Zero2Nineteen, April: 26.Google Scholar
Etzioni, A. (1993), The Spirit of Community: The Reinvention of American Society, New York: Touchstone Books.Google Scholar
Gerwitz, S. (2001), ‘Cloning the Blairs: New Labour's programme for the re-socialization of working-class parents’, Journal of Education Policy, 16, 4, 365–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddens, A. (1998), The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Gillies, V. (2005), ‘Meeting parents’ needs? Discourses of “support” and “inclusion” in family policy’, Critical Social Policy, 25, 1, 70–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glass, N. (2005), ‘Surely some mistake?’, The Guardian, 5 January, available at www.guardian.co.uk/society/2005/jan/05/guardiansocietysupplement.childrensservices.Google Scholar
Heron, E. (2001), ‘Etzioni's spirit of communitarianism: community values and welfare realities in Blair's Britain’, Social Policy Review, 13, Bristol: The Policy Press, pp. 63–87.Google Scholar
Lawler, S. (2002), ‘Narrative in Social Research’, in May, T. (ed.), Qualitative Research in Action, London: Sage, pp. 242–58.Google Scholar
Lister, R. (2003), ‘Investing in the citizen-workers of the future: transformations in citizenship and the state under New Labour’, Social Policy and Administration, 37, 5, 427–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lister, R. (2006), ‘Children (but not women) first: New Labour, child welfare and gender’, Critical Social Policy, 26, 2, 315–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millar, J. and Ridge, T. (2009), ‘Relationships of care: working lone mothers, their children and employment sustainability’, Journal of Social Policy, 38, 1, 101–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Office for National Statistics (2001), Census of Population, Crown Copyright, London: ONS.Google Scholar
Penn, H. and Randall, V. (2005), ‘Childcare policy and local partnerships under Labour’, Journal of Social Policy, 34, 1, 79–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Platt, L. (2007), Poverty and Ethnicity in the UK, Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Sure Start Unit (1999), Sure Start for All, Guidance on Involving Minority Ethnic Children and Families, available at www.nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/84480Google Scholar